Good article, automatic like for correctly labeling ABC as "BAB". Checkpoints were a really stupid moved, ruined the coin completely. How can it get any traction when an attack is so cheap? Some rogue BTC hash could kill the chain at any time. I certainly wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

I think it’s a little suspicious. The people most vocal about what a terrible vulnerable plan the checkpointing is, also happen to be the ones who have been threatening to reorg the BCH chain; thus prompting the checkpoints.

If team Craig and Calvin actually believed that the checkpointing creates a catastrophic vulnerability they wouldn’t be saying shit. They would be working quietly to exploit that vulnerability and damage the BCH chain. The reason they are making so much noise is because checkpointing largely shuts down the threats they’ve been making for the last days/weeks.

>Apparently, the new ‘checkpoint’ is maintained by the node operators themselves, without the confirmation that comes by writing it to the underlying blockchain,
This is misunderstanding. Nothing is maintained by node operators, it is all only software that maintains it.
>“It’s shifting consensus power to developers, away from miners,” wrote long-time cryptocurrency evangelist Andreas Antonopolous. “
This is also wrong. This patch is not a 'checkpoint', where a developer set the block hash into the code and creates 'checkpoint'. In this patch software comes to agreement on when the block is finalized, and no amount of PoW can orphan it anymore.
The attack on new nodes, or nodes that re-connect, it can be done, but not as easy as the article want us to believe. Like this:
>But the bottomline is still the same: it only takes one (mildly powerful) mining rig to cause significant problems for ABC’s entire network.
They are talking about a problem for a new node that is coming online, and suddenly, shifting to 'significant' problems for entire network.
Important economic and mining nodes are run by professionals, that know how to set-up a new node.

I actually have to stop myself from going full alex jones on ABC and thinking they are trying to destroy the ledger on purpose as some kind of conspiracy, as I don't see how this change wasn't blindingly obvious as possibly the most destructive change you could introduce, its hard to think of many code changes that could actually be worse aside from a typo.

My "Alex Jones" theory is that Bitmain is controlled by the Chinese government which is controlled by it's central bank. It really does seem like Bitmain has done everything they can to subvert bitcoin. They're either incredibly stupid or malicious. If you own 6 figure bitcoins and dominate the bitcoin mining industry, why the hell did you let a group of developers with zero hash kill your golden goose? Why are you paying Amaury to mess with the goose and repeat history? Why even mess with wormhole? If I owned a million ounces of gold the absolute last thing I would do is try to get platinum used a world currency. Maybe I just don't know enough but it's hard to make heads or tails of Bitmain.

I've been entertaining this thought recently as well but have been reluctant to voice it because I don't want to sound bat-shit paranoid.
If you think back to the block size debate that lead up to the BCH fork we at one point had like 80% nodes signaling for big blocks if I recall. Everything seemed like it was sorting itself out. And since then it's been one misfire after another and always Jihan is at the center of it. All Jihan had to do was say "fuck you" to Core and we'd all still be BTC'ers, just with big blocks.
I don't know if the Chinese government is behind it or it's all his personal master plan but his actions are consistent with the goal of preventing bitcoin from succeeding by repeatedly fracturing crypto into thousand of useless shards.
This is primarily why - despite CSW - I'm rooting for SV. They reminded me that I'm a bitcoin maximalist and I'm still super pissed about what happened to BTC. I mean BCH was alright but there was supposed to be a flippening, remember? And when that didn't come to pass it just kind of became the new normal to piddle along as the annoying kid brother and maybe someday we'll get enough burger restaurants to take BCH and magically adoption will happen.
The whole world needs bitcoin. It's fucking important. Anyone who stands up to Jihan is alright in my book.

Completely agree with everything you said. Jihan's actions have subverted bitcoin every step of the way. With so much at stake and operating in a communist country with a central bank I think it would be naive to not entertain the idea Bitmain and Jihan are controlled. The world does need bitcoin. It created the gold standard using the internet. It's beautiful and genius and we just have to let it work and stop trying to change it! I hope SV can finally do it right.